Cheap Mod 15 Buff-Build.

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Ok, I've updated my version of the buff build to now show the multiplicative damage buff for LSS+Hawkeye. Those buffs do not just simply add together! Below are the test results from Yona in the HR Discord group. He is a French PC player and so he had to translate a bit to English, so please excuse the French remnants. The console numbers were also separately verified by Ash Willowbrook of the HR Discord group. These results clearly place Buff HRs among the best damage buffers in the game. Better than Templocks.

Tests done by [email protected], for any question, contact me by mail / messages in game or at Séra’@8999 on discord

what about acd? it seems like without primal you could put something in like aspect and just keep with your old trapper build wiht higher end gear and do a bit of damage as well as doing buffing. As a 17.3 hr with all the gear I need to be a trapper it seems wrong to go with pure buff instead of going hybrid. especially when it seems like you'd be very close to the pure buff build. ofc. haven't tested.. it seemed like in the old days keeping up lss was no where near impossible with a straight up trapper build. edit I guess none of those things apply roots. I guess you could switch out the least powerful for hindering shot. I am not sure if the damage you'd add would equal the partys damage from the missing one. seems like more testing would be nice here. most of the people in this particular conversation are not 12k hrs (I'd be surprised if I weren't the lowest IL here lol)_... as end game hrs going pure buff seems bassackwards. IDK. maybe it's not but moar testing...

thorn ward is a debuff, hawkeye is a BUFF. huge difference. And in PvE there is a point, where 5-10% buff for main dps is more then you could ever hope to do, its how the buffs work im afraid wheel,thome,bane,exaltation, trexes and soulsight.

stop getting all semantic on me when I say buff I mean buff debuff. it's just short hand.

after playing with rotations commanding shot takes a painful long time. how is anyone going to keep up a solid rotation with that in there. and you say that, but hrs can do a decent amount of damage. trappers can do a decent amount of damage. a trapper isn't as good as a combat but I don't see the tests showing that we would be doing such a disservice by keeping some deeps in our toon.

plus it seems more difficult/ possibly unrealistic to keep everything in a 4 second window with these longer casting powers. the hybrid archer/trapper with no capstone has slower cool down for me than straight up trapper. it's far easier to keep a rotation up with fast casting powers pure trapper capstone and thus more likely that the group is actually seeing those buffs. when you're at a camp fire it's different than when you're in the field getting hit with stuns and knockdowns. sometimes these builds strike me as a bit idealistic. (came up on that with mod 15 ac build as well)

it's more actual time it takes to do rotation than recovery

isnt minmaxing all this is about? to find the most slugish, heavybuffing way and brutforce it to work. find every little animation cancel you can to squeeze extra time into that 4s. my dream HR would use LSS,hawkeye and thorn ward. all cast really fast.

I updated my version of the build just this weekend, in part because console is now at Mod 15. No fundamental changes to the feats or other core aspects, but I did add some clarifications and options here and there, some of which were influenced by Jonkoca. There are a number of additional companion options listed, suggested weapon sets and so forth.

In general, the basic concept, as also explained by Jonkoca, is that this type of build is inexpensive to make, but you can add on to it to enhance the capabilities. I've been getting a lot of positive feedback. Despite that Hawkeye only buffs encounters, GWFs seem to love it because the continuous uptime on LSS (which buffs everything) means they always have the damage buff. A DC contacted me and said he actually dusted off an old HR that wasn't good for much but works great with this type of build and he's been enjoying doing something different from DC and he found the transition was not difficult for him in terms of his playstyle.

A few people did push back on the lack of DPS. I think the idea of buffing a single main DPS is a little hard for some people to grasp, but that type of party configuration does really work well. And where you really do need secondary DPS, then a Trapper (or even an Archer) could provide a nice combination of buffs and DPS. The challenge there is just having to stack that much more recovery and of course any time spend focusing on DPS is potentially time not spent buffing. So you have to decide what has the bigger bang for the buck. If your main DPS is powerful, it may make sense for some less advanced players to simple buff the DPS. That said, I've heard from a number of very advanced players too (i.e. 17 and 18K HRs) who say that even they find it fun to go full buff part of the time.

As you say, it's pretty much impossible to go wrong with this build, as the core of it doesn't require anything other than the right choice of paragon, feats and powers, none of which require very much item level. High recovery is just icing on the cake. Survivability is nice ofc. but I've noticed that my personal damage when I run this build is so laughably low that all the mobs and bosses just totally ignore me lol. I only die if I get pushed off the ledge in codg, or get out of position in CR at the sisters (I do the book sometimes) or at the end boss and I step in the red once too often. Even the DC beats me on the paingiver.

You could do this without artifact weapons lol, just some blue HAMSTER off the AH. I like this buff build business, after years of going crazy chasing stats and max dps, this is like a holiday.

As you say, it's pretty much impossible to go wrong with this build, as the core of it doesn't require anything other than the right choice of paragon, feats and powers, none of which require very much item level. High recovery is just icing on the cake. Survivability is nice ofc. but I've noticed that my personal damage when I run this build is so laughably low that all the mobs and bosses just totally ignore me lol. I only die if I get pushed off the ledge in codg, or get out of position in CR at the sisters (I do the book sometimes) or at the end boss and I step in the red once too often. Even the DC beats me on the paingiver.

You could do this without artifact weapons lol, just some blue HAMSTER off the AH. I like this buff build business, after years of going crazy chasing stats and max dps, this is like a holiday.

I agree with you. This type of build is super simple and works with minimal gear. You almost have to restrain oneself about the gear. I make suggestions, but to use your analogy about icing on the cake, all those little suggestions are like colorful sprinkles on top of the icing on top of cake. The underlying build is pretty darned good by itself.

I dont quite understand why you guys are going Hybrid of Trapper and Archer for the Ranged Cool-Down times... It just isnt needed and you can still go full Trapper. I started to make my own buff build last night and did not need the cooldown time from the Archer Path at all.

I was able to stand there and go : LSS>HawkS>BindingA>DisruptiveSh>HuntersT...switch...>HawkE>OakS... just hit rapid strike twice in thin air and switch back to Ranged... Rinse and Repeat

If you are not worried about DPS then that works without having to move and its a perminant up-time of LSS and Hawk Eye. You can also squeek in other attacks when needed like Careful Attack. Hitting the air twice with Rapid Strike still counts towards Swiftness of the Fox you dont have to actually hit anything with the attack.

Anyhoo I have not really done much testing yet but I imagine the full Trapper Feats are over-all better than putting 20 Points into the Archer Tree just purely because Master Trapper beats anything you can put 20 points in to.

I dont quite understand why you guys are going Hybrid of Trapper and Archer for the Ranged Cool-Down times... It just isnt needed and you can still go full Trapper. I started to make my own buff build last night and did not need the cooldown time from the Archer Path at all.

I was able to stand there and go : LSS>HawkS>BindingA>DisruptiveSh>HuntersT...switch...>HawkE>OakS... just hit rapid strike twice in thin air and switch back to Ranged... Rinse and Repeat

If you are not worried about DPS then that works without having to move and its a perminant up-time of LSS and Hawk Eye. You can also squeek in other attacks when needed like Careful Attack. Hitting the air twice with Rapid Strike still counts towards Swiftness of the Fox you dont have to actually hit anything with the attack.

Anyhoo I have not really done much testing yet but I imagine the full Trapper Feats are over-all better than putting 20 Points into the Archer Tree just purely because Master Trapper beats anything you can put 20 points in to.

keep in mind that some peeps that use this build might do it as fresh HR, with 0 or close to 0 recovery, also some use thorn ward, lss, hawk that takes longer to cast, so its harder to get rotation off meaning cdr helps. and 1 more thing, enemies in pvp can currently be buffed by HR might work in pve too. worth looking into.

I know what you mean @wdj40, but as leon said, I built this to be a cheapass loadout for everyone, even alts with HAMSTER gear.

And even if you are a full dps trapper, with all the bells and whistles, your contribution to overall damage will be neglible, you are unbuffed, at range, plinking away all on your own. Which is a good thing, because nothing bothers to try and kill you. If you are busy trying to dps, then you aren't buffing as much as you could tbh.

Say you do slip in the odd dps maneover, and miss an LSS, the amount of damage the buffed main dps would have done while you are sneaking in your rooty-toot-toots or whatever, would have far outmatched whatever dps you managed to dish out.

@wdj40 The rotation you describe is not something I would personally recommend for a buffer because you cannot maintain 100% uptime of LSS doing that. Hawk Shot in particular is a slow power and won't make much difference and Rapid Strike twice into the air is just lost time. If you were to actually run the recommended rotations, I doubt you will be able to go anywhere as fast as firing LSS every 4 seconds, especially with the level of recovery that most Trappers have. You would need to stack a great deal more recovery as a Trapper to do it. It can be done, but you will need heavier investments than is required by the hybrid trapper archery build. Even if you did, it would be difficult to do a lot of secondary DPS unless you sacrifice some buffing in order to sprinkle in some of the better DPS powers. In the end, it is just a choice of strategy. Some situations might be better served with slower, less frequent buffs where 2ndary DPS is provided. Other situations might favor going all-in on buffing, such as with a single DPS party configuration. The later can be incredibly potent. I and quite a few other HRs are reporting serious melt action with this approach. It really does work, if you have a solid main DPS to buff.

Jonk and Typo... I dont know why you are both bringing up DPS or secondary DPS as you have clearly stated this is not for DPS purposes. So the proposed rotation I mentioned via the Trapper Path has nothing to do with DPS, I have not tested the damage.

@Typo you are just assuming and posting your thoughts without even attempting trying what I have suggested. You can keep up 100% uptime of LSS and I posted that earlier.

I have just made a clip of me hitting a training dummy and showing that you can get through the rotation in 4-5 seconds and I have slowed down my clip whilst watching it just to make sure. I will post it when it has uploaded.

I am not even trying to perfect it and I have not changed any items from my Combat build in an attempt to make it work.

On another note I am currently working on a Pathfinder Trapper build and its certainly not a dead path. It requires a LOT more switching stances to maximise Deft Strike + Aspect of the Serpent stacks for nearly every attack. It goes a little something like...

Jonk and Typo... I dont know why you are both bringing up DPS or secondary DPS as you have clearly stated this is not for DPS purposes. So the proposed rotation I mentioned via the Trapper Path has nothing to do with DPS, I have not tested the damage.

@Typo you are just assuming and posting your thoughts without even attempting trying what I have suggested. You can keep up 100% uptime of LSS and I posted that earlier.

I have just made a clip of me hitting a training dummy and showing that you can get through the rotation in 4-5 seconds and I have slowed down my clip whilst watching it just to make sure. I will post it when it has uploaded.

I am not even trying to perfect it and I have not changed any items from my Combat build in an attempt to make it work.

On another note I am currently working on a Pathfinder Trapper build and its certainly not a dead path. It requires a LOT more switching stances to maximise Deft Strike + Aspect of the Serpent stacks for nearly every attack. It goes a little something like...

Maintaining 2 stacks of Melee and Ranged AotS at pretty much all times.

@wdj40 LSS has a duration of 4 seconds and the video looks to me like your rotating thru at about 6 to 8 seconds. That is good. But there is a gap. Here is what I was seeing you do in terms of rotation speed in that video:

7 seconds

7 seconds

8 seconds

7 seconds

6 seconds

7 seconds

8 seconds

7 seconds

8 seconds

7 seconds

6 seconds

7 seconds

So with that being said, your buffs will be down from about 33% to 50% of the time because of the gaps between the buffs.

I have actually tried various rotation combinations, including the use the Hawk Shot like you are doing, but in the end the rotations I listed on page 2 of mine, which require firing 5 powers not 9, are what I've found can be done consistently within 4-ish seconds. If you were to eliminate some powers, then the next thing is to overcome the cooldown requirements in order to re-fire LSS that quickly.

Ladies, ladies, calm yourselves. Typo, you're a good theorycrafter, and Wdj40 is a great pvper, you're both good HRs, no biting plz.

This is really a great discussion. WDJ40 brings up a common question. He is not the first to ask "why not a Trapper," so it is a very good question that he has asked. I recall him raising some good points in the past with my other builds that lead me to make updates based on his input. So it is all good!

In general, one thing I do frequently mention is that all HRs can buff. We all have access to the same powers and I think Trappers in particular are well suited to the task as a buffer. In fact with high enough recovery, Trappers can maintain constant buffs. But where these hybrid builds shine is that lower item level HRs can do it too without necessarily requiring fancy gear or enchantments. 100% uptime is actually kind of hard to reach but, by combining the feats of Trapper and Archer, it does become much easier.

LSS and GW are a great combination and HRs pretty much all use it. Hawkeye and Hawk Shot are not as good of a combination and most DPS focused HRs will instead use TC/StS or TW/TS. Because LSS requires a 30 foot range for the buff, it also gets tricky to maintain it constantly if you also have to run in and out to do PG. That can be done, but it's pretty manic in a 4 second rotation. Stormwarden Combat HRs have been the go-to HR in recent mods, but now we seem to have a viable role for Pathfinder once again, as follows:

Main DPS or Secondary DPS Stormwarden Combat HR with Throw Caution and Blade Storm. If there are two or more HRs in a party, then they will only refresh each other's LSS buffs and, if one is the Main DPS, then may just want to drop LSS from the main DPS rotation.

Full Buffer Pathfinder with LSS + Hawkeye with the Primal Instincts passive. Can be a Trapper or Archer or Hybrid.

For the buffer, since it is easier to just stay in position at 30 feet for firing LSS, an Archer may have a slight DPS advantage due to ranged burst damage, but Trapper could expect a little help from DOT root damage. But since we're already giving up so much DPS by this point, there is a kind of logic that says why settle for a mediocre job as a secondary DPS when you can instead do a great job as a full-time buffer. Whether that is with a souped up Trapper or with this wacky hybrid build, either way, as long as the job gets done, that's really all that matters.

(Trappers can of course be a main or secondary DPS too, but Combat is at present wearing the DPS crown among HRs.)

That's just kind of the logic in play on this type of build. I won't say it is for everyone. I know some who just cannot stand to be a buffer. But for those who are willing, it is a neat loadout.

As for people mentioning this is a cheap Mod 15 build I also did another clip https://xboxdvr.com/gamer/wdj40/video/67881592 which is slightly messier. But I have taken off my Companion, all Armour including Shirt Pants and Rings, lowering my IL to exactly 9k (3k recovery) and it still works.

I still just cannot see the point in putting 20 points into the Archery Tree for cool-downs that are not needed as Swiftness of the Fox already does that for you.

@wdj40 I was planning to make a video, but had been so far getting feedback and making refinements first before taking that next step. I should be able to do a basic concept demo at the dummies though. I'll follow-up on that. But I do want to show this in a dungeon run as well. One of the challenges is perfecting the rotations. Much as how HRs who, for example when changing from Trapper to Combat, need some practice to get the rotations just right, it is kind of the same thing here. I've since gotten pretty fast at it but between real-life work and family, guild leadership duties, and maintaining three different builds, I find that my spare time often disappears on me pretty fast. But I'll try to get this by this weekend.

Basically, as a buffer, forget damage min-maxing. You want to have Longstrider's shot up as much as possible. Hawkeye is the next priority, then the third buff is optional, I go for foxdodge, because the melee side doesn't need a target so you cam spam it in place, for trash mobs - and on bosses thornward for max damage buffs. After that, you just want to stay alive, and be quick on your feet.

* snip*

And that's it.

Nice build. I Applied it to My HR & not only did I not lose any DPS, but my survivability went up! Thanks for posting!

Quick question... now that I have gotten my primal weapons, which set of gear should I focus on, raid or assault? Or should I mix & match?

Depends, if this is a buff build only, not intented to dps, then any old HAMSTER will do, as long as it has decent hitpoints, AC and recovery. If this is going to be a full on viable dps toon, then arpen to a 100, crit as high as poss. rest into power and whatever lifesteal and recovery you can scrounge up.

@wdj40 It's not the greatest video I know. I think the player was just trying out the build and perhaps had not fully mastered the rotation. It does take some practice. But that group was impressed with the performance, none the less. Ultimately, regardless of how a buff HR does it, I think Buff HRs are the real deal. And about the 4 seconds, this does not have to be proven, because it already has been established by other HRs in past that LSS can be maintained continuously. I'm just simply saying that this build makes that easier to accomplish. And I will get a video of it, but this week has been insane for me at work and it probably won't be until this weekend before I can get to it, unless someone else can do it sooner.

BTW, it seems Aspect of the Pack is broken in Mod 15. The passive is now no longer providing Combat Advantage. DPS roles should still run Aspect of the Pack with the Offhand Artifact Power because it still provides a consistent up to +8% damage bonus. But for a Buff HR, CA would be the reason to use the passive and, since it is now broken, there is not much point using it until it is fixed.

BTW, it seems Aspect of the Pack is broken in Mod 15. The passive is now no longer providing Combat Advantage. DPS roles should still run Aspect of the Pack with the Offhand Artifact Power because it still provides a consistent up to +8% damage bonus. But for a Buff HR, CA would be the reason to use the passive and, since it is now broken, there is not much point using it until it is fixed.

I honestly do not know where you get this information from and I wish you would test it before posting something.

I have checked Aspect of the Pack before and after todays patch and it works fine. Go up to a training dummy with your Companion and equip Pack. You see the Blue circle around each of the dummies when you are near your companion... Thats Combat Advantage.

Now un-equip Pack and you see the circles are now just a single bar showing you where you need to stand to get CA. Another good way to see is the Tiger Companion attacks faster and uses his Debuff when he has CA.